Sir, - I wish to take this opportunity of correcting a number of inaccuracies in your leader piece on February 15th, entitled "Fine Gael and water charges". You conclude that many farmers are cynically manipulating the situation to ensure a further subsidy from urban taxpayers, through receiving not only free domestic water but subsidised water for business and farmyard uses as well.
At no stage did IFA seek either free, or subsidised, water for non domestic use. Indeed, farmers have been at the forefront of the group water scheme movement over the last 30 years, and they appreciate more than most that water must be paid for, often with significant private investment.
It must not be forgotten that the original campaign to abolish water service charges was urban driven. However the Government's response, which you agree was taken with a view to the general election, has resulted in a clear inequity in the treatment of farmers and rural dwellers.
IFA's policy does not seek "special treatment", as you claim. It is simply that rural dwellers must not be discriminated against. To this end, households outside the local authority water supply system must receive the same monetary subvention as the mainly urban households whose water supply charges have been abolished.
Your comments on the taxation of EU farm subsidies are, again, ill informed. EU farm income, supports are, and always have been, assessable to income tax. The sole exception is incentives relating to forestry, which is a national decision dating back to 1969 - before Ireland's entry into the Common Market - and forestry incentives are available to both farmers and non farmers.
While farmers would be irritated by the inaccuracies in your editorial, I would be even more concerned if these pointed to an underlying prejudice and lack of understanding on your part which could only lead to unnecessary urban rural division. - Yours, etc.,
Deputy president, The Irish Farmers' Association, Irish Farm Centre,
Bluebell,
Dublin 12.